The Boxes We Carry
At What Point Do the Coping Mechanisms That Helped Us Survive Begin Preventing Us From Fully Living?
One of the most remarkable things I’ve learned about being a human being is our ability to survive. Life can hand us heartbreak, loss, betrayal, grief, disappointment, abandonment, trauma, and circumstances we never would have chosen, yet somehow we find a way to keep moving forward. We get up the next morning. We go to work. We raise children. We care for others. We continue showing up even when our hearts are carrying more than anyone can see.
In order to do this, many of us develop coping mechanisms. Some are healthy. Some are protective. Some are necessary. One of the most common is compartmentalization. We take painful experiences and place them into little emotional boxes. We set them aside so we can function, survive, and continue navigating life.
There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, there are seasons when compartmentalization serves us well. When we are in the middle of a crisis, we often don’t have the luxury of fully processing everything we are feeling. Survival becomes the priority. The problem isn’t that we create the boxes. The problem comes when we never return to open them.
Many of us are carrying emotional boxes from years ago. Some contain childhood wounds. Some contain grief over loved ones we’ve lost. Others hold divorce, rejection, betrayal, disappointment, or dreams that never came to fruition. We tell ourselves we’ve moved on because we don’t think about these experiences every day. Yet if we’re honest, many of those boxes still influence how we see ourselves, how we trust others, and how we move through the world.
I believe there is a difference between surviving an experience and healing from it. Survival is getting through it. Healing is understanding it. Survival allows us to continue moving. Healing allows us to become free.
The interesting thing about unresolved emotions is that they rarely stay buried. They have a way of resurfacing. Sometimes they show up as triggers. Sometimes they appear as anxiety, anger, fear, defensiveness, or sadness that seems disproportionate to the situation at hand. Sometimes they emerge in our relationships, where old wounds quietly shape new experiences.
Have you ever found yourself reacting strongly to something and wondered, “Why does this affect me so much?” Often the answer has very little to do with the present moment and everything to do with something from the past that has not yet been fully acknowledged.
What we do not process, we carry.
Many people believe that time heals all wounds. I think time offers opportunities to heal wounds, but healing itself requires participation. Time may soften the edges, but emotions still ask to be felt. Grief still asks to be honored. Pain still asks to be witnessed. The experiences we try hardest to avoid often become the very things that continue influencing our lives from the shadows.
I also believe our bodies keep score in ways we don’t always understand. Our minds may convince us we’ve moved on, but our bodies often remember what our hearts have not fully processed. Chronic stress, tension, exhaustion, emotional reactivity, and a constant feeling of being on guard can sometimes be signs that parts of ourselves are carrying burdens we were never meant to carry forever. I believe Dis-ease can also be unprocessed emotions.
From a spiritual perspective, I often wonder if our greatest triggers are actually our greatest teachers. What if the emotions that continue to surface aren’t evidence that we’re broken? What if they are invitations? Invitations to look deeper. Invitations to heal. Invitations to finally release what we’ve been carrying for years.
I don’t believe we come here to avoid pain. I believe we come here to learn from it. To transform it. To discover who we are beyond it.
Every difficult experience leaves us with a choice. We can allow it to harden us, or we can allow it to teach us. We can continue carrying it, or we can begin the process of releasing it. Neither path is easy, but only one leads to freedom.
Healing doesn’t mean forgetting. It doesn’t mean excusing harmful behavior. It doesn’t mean reliving every painful moment. It simply means acknowledging what happened, feeling what needs to be felt, and allowing ourselves to move forward without carrying the emotional weight of the past into every future experience.
The boxes once served a purpose. They protected us when we needed protection. They helped us survive when survival was enough.
But there comes a point in life when survival is no longer the goal.
Living is.
And living fully requires us to make peace with the parts of ourselves we’ve hidden away.
Perhaps the greatest act of self-love is not pretending the boxes don’t exist. Perhaps it is finding the courage to open them, one at a time, and discovering that what we feared would break us was actually waiting to set us free. <3
Notes to Nathan
My sweet boy.
As you move through life, there will be moments that hurt. Some disappointments will be small, and others may feel unbearable. There will be losses you never saw coming and situations you wish had turned out differently.
When those moments arrive, don’t be afraid to feel them.
Your heart was not designed to store pain indefinitely. It was designed to experience life fully. The joy, the love, the excitement, the grief, and even the heartbreak. Every emotion has something to teach you if you’re willing to listen.
There may be times when survival requires you to put something aside for a while. That’s okay. We all do it. Just remember to come back to it when you’re ready. Give yourself permission to grieve, to heal, to learn, and to grow.
The strongest people I have ever known were not the ones who never felt pain. They were the ones who had the courage to face it.
Never mistake numbness for strength.
Never mistake avoidance for healing.
And never forget that every challenge life places before you contains an opportunity to become an even wiser, kinder, and more compassionate version of yourself.
Life is not asking you to be perfect. It is simply asking you to be present.
I hope you always have the courage to feel deeply, love fully, and heal completely.